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Saturday, December 31, 2011

For a long while I've been folding paper pots to grow seedings in. Our daughter wants to have a stall at the market...selling eggs, flowers and plants. So we've been pretty keen to fold heaps of pots.
I folded them all to start off with. Then she folded the parts she understood...and today she took off on her own for a while and folded one all by her self...then folded one in front of everyone.
Very cool

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Wow how things work out.
Some mornings over breakfast we watch a documentary. I got the "eye witness" DVDs from the library and there is one on reptiles.
So a favorite is bear grylls and you know how much he encounters snakes, turtles, lizards and all other stuff.
So that day after watching Dave saw a skink at my parents house. The kids watched him...DS not sure of it all...dd and Dave trying to trap it with their hands...."it's lost it's tail!" how exciting.
They finally caught it...it hid under Daves foot. Dave held it long enough for both children to look at it and pat it then put it outside in the garden...with it's still wriggling tail.
No photos but lots of fun memory's

Thursday, December 22, 2011

I've been reading Sandra Dodds book which I feel is amazing. I love her bluntness and I know when I don't get something I need to put the book down for a few days or weeks and then have some life experience to understand how it either works in my life or does not.

She says she is often asked "So how DO you unschool?" I can understand the question coming from a schooled background where everything is told to you or written out in directions for you to follow....you want some sort of direction.

I think where seasoned unschoolers get lost is possibly..."well how do I explain how you should live your life".

And for me that's just it.

How do you live your lives we need to know.

Was it in Sandras book...website...some other website? I don't' know but I think the most meaningful thing I read (and dam I can't go back to it) was parents describing what they did throughout their day.

An example of mine would be our St George day.

Got up, ate breakfast, feed chickens, put on washing, read st George and the dragon, made swords, made castle, put washing out, had sword fights, made lunch for in the castle, napped in the castle, watched how to train your dragon, made dinner - dragon stew (kids don't really like meat so yuck!), got books out of the library on dragons, (I did a search on net for ...)coloured in dragons, Daddy's finished work....showed him everything.

We ZINGED!!!

But now that was a good day!

A bad day might mean the washing doesn't get out, kids are tired and don't want any story's...they are fighting, I try making fairy bread with them - they like it, then go back to fighting, I take them to the park...it rains and they cry, I take them to the cafe....their juice spills all over the table and each other.... they cry, I put on a movie...one likes it the other does not...I put on another movie in another room...I run back and forward providing food and drink until they have had enough of a movie, they play outside...fall down the bank and get hurt...they trip over their scooter on the way to me for the first hurt, no one wants to cook any dinner I open a tin of spaghetti and sausages and Dave and I have boil in the bag curry, there is a huge scream up in the bathroom as Dave tries to keep the water in the bath and DS sitting down...he falls over and hits his head, then DD wants stories to go on and on and on and DS is walking the walls and leaping from the bed doing Bear Grills rolls....

Breath...the lights are out and DS rolls from side to side before he drops off to sleep where is DD is so tired she's asleep in 5mins.

Our kids love being outside and considering I've only just come back from the doctors with yet more of my skin needing to be cut out...I worry.
I brought this sun shade had wanted to last year but the cost put me off. But the cost is higher than money really so here it is.
Over the dirt pile. We do have two sand pits... But this can be seen from many angles from the house so they like this better,

Dd came rushing in with our first plum.
"I don't get it...there are 4 plums and we don't have another plum around to fertilize"
We've had this tree for 3 years and are still to get round buying another

As you can see it's very green as the wind blew it off.
So dd wanted to cut it open
"oh it's green inside too"
She picked it up and smelt it "what would it taste like?"...."yuck!"

Grandpa said to the kids "when i was little you couldn't go to school till you could tie your own shoe " ... Sorry have to laugh here but did they have shoes? My kids hardly wear shoes.

But now days there are not many shoes to tie...no laces!
I was wondering how I would bring this into our learning.
Dd has a dress that needs a bow. DS does have a pair of shoes. But very little else.
I think dd has been puzzling this out on her own. Watching Dave and myself. I've tried to go slow so she could watch but never told her what to do.

She'd kind of got the idea before I found this shoe thingy in the op shop...it just finished off the understanding.
So this morning I had the most beautiful bow tied on my pjs.

We've had home education group making Christmas mice.
It's funny after talking on Sandra Dodds web site about how much 'teachers' do for their students.
Dd made the yellow mouse on her own...her colour is yellow by the way...NOT pink ;-) she cut it her self and glued it on her own. But the green mouse was made 'in class'.
she did not see why she should have red and green... And did not understand the culture behind the colour choices... Yellow (to use the curious George movie saying) hey it's the new Christmas colour.

We're having dance time to Crazy Frog and then moving into Secret Garden. My dd thinks anything with secret garden in it is hers...my meditainment meditation, the movie, the music...and often draws her own garden and of course has half of Daves own real garden as her own secret garden ;-)

Now the tiger is after them... Small beanie toy which has been the source of all imaginative play the past month.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

A few weeks back I took our two too the caves close to our place. They loved it.
Last night we went with friends camping...yes on the rain.
Oh well.
Dd took off into the bush. As we are reading secret seven they had to have a club house and password. Hours!!!
DS took off with Dave and walked and climbed and jumped for ....hours wonderful.

We had a wonderful time tonight. Kids running every where. Easy food. A little Chatter.
It was very exciting for DS to see the fire truck pull up...but then very unsure about the man in the red outfit. rushed back to Dave's arms. Dd offered to walk up with DS to talk to Santa and get gift.

I had to laugh for dinner the kids are getting into the Gruffalo...book and DVD. So tonight dd made gruffalo crumble...DS wanted roast fox but I couldn't see how to do that quickly so it was scrambled snake.
I've brought the gruffalo book for DS this Christmas...so we have our own copy.

Both very tired after a long day. Nana gone on holiday, shopping, library and then swimming lessons.
Lots of accidents lately so I thing a few rest days needed next week.

I think if we could our kids would spend all day in the garden. Sad about sun burn.
Dd has 1-2 of each plant we have in our garden in hers...and hers looks better.
Here we have our first attempt at cabbages. In trimming them I just about lost my finger. Dd dashed and got a piglet bandaid so it's still hanging on only just.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Friday is such a packed day!
Trying to convince my son it's time to start the day...and he just wants a bit more hugs.

Pack the truck
Birthday at the playground
Pick up groceries
Nanma and Grandad for lunch
Routine out window

Many falls from playground equipment...america family asking if we needed a paramedic

Swimming lessons grandparents watching today
End of year chaos at pools with 100s of more kids than normal at the pools...really loud

Library
Heat

Nana missing -thank goodness she had her cellphone on her
Dinner late
Dd wants me to make Christmas decorations with her now

Both kids Playing really well after dinner seems a shame to stop them so we didn't.

The photos
The kids were quiet for a long time before desert one night then came out wearing stockings on their head and socks not right on their feet...."we're rabbits"
I just about wet myself laughing

We are trying to find a way of not burning out close to dinner Dave suggested game time... It's been a hit. We're lucky enough to have two laptops that both kids can work on

Dd's goal for this season is to watch a seed grow. So we've tried to put seeds up close to the wall if a jar...very excited tonight as one is already sprouting.

Christmas decoration...oh woe. Lots of this this year. We've decorated the playcentre tree. Our own tree. Made decorations at home education group. And now more at home

About Us

A family that wears many hats. Each day we live and learn about our environment we live it. We are learning about life and its many areas; Creating a home and keeping it running, Growing food and figuring out what happened when it didn’t grow, Cooking food that brings out the best for our health, Learning is important for everyone in the family with big focus of Home Education (Homeschooling), Working on our family attachment and bond, Learning about how our body and brain works. There are more things sure....